Maryland Invests in Cybersecurity Startup Luminal

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Maryland’s efforts to build out the local cybersecurity economy seem to be working. Cybersecurity startup Luminal recently announced a move to Maryland from West Virginia, and will be rewarded by a $600,000 investment from InvestMaryland, the state’s venture fund. With this investment, Luminal closed a total of $3.82 million in a Series A round of funding including Core Capital Partners and New Enterprise Associates.

As CivSource has reported Maryland has launched several initiatives aimed at growing the local cybersecurity economy, including tax incentives, investments and a research partnership leveraging local universities and the military. Maryland is building on its proximity to a number of critical defense assets and the federal government to attract new cybersecurity entrants. The state of Virginia is also working on a similar effort.

The company is one of the first in the state to apply for the Cybersecurity Investment Incentive Tax Credit, which kicked off earlier this year. Luminal was also recently named one of three cybersecurity finalists in the InvestMaryland Challenge, the State’s national business competition. The winners of more than $700,000 in prizes available through the Challenge will be announced in May.

Luminal is working with early customers to further develop its solution, called “Fugue,” for general availability, initially on Amazon Web Services. The product is designed to simplify and improve cloud services. The company plans to use the Series A round funds to grow its engineering staff to continue product development and expand its customer base.

Administered by the State’s Maryland Venture Fund (MVF), InvestMaryland is a public-private partnership of the State and venture capital firms and one of Governor O’Malley’s key economic development initiatives. InvestMaryland raised $84 million to reinvigorate the State-run MVF and support the growth of young Maryland companies in biotechnology, cybersecurity, e-commerce and other high-growth industries.